Ok. I love Rex lead. I really do. I've written a bunch of posts claiming how amazing he is and why he's great. I run Rex pretty much every chance I can. I've been attempting to figure out free to play solutions to at least counter the WiggsRexFacAni meta running rampant on my shard (my fault, but it's a strong team to run). I've realized a horrible fact.
Rex is the strongest leader and prevents any other teams from shining.
His leadership is so good that it prevents arena variety. Outside of very specialized teams (droids, Jedi counter teams, and Scoundrels), Rex is the best lead for any team. This is in large part due to the value of speed, and the direct result of speed: turn meter gain.
I know that this is a bold claim. Considering that I've explained my love for Rex, I'll simply explain why he is stronger than the different lead types.
Speed leaders: with similar mods, after a single crit, most Rex teams will see their entire team move when faced against a speed leader. And before anyone claims that OB or Palp could shut this down, Rex is faster than a non-Tarkin Palp, and Wiggs is still faster than a Tarkin-Palp. Ackbar actually makes this situation worse due to the assist call(and potential crit) from specials, not to mention that Wiggs is still faster than St Han. Rex is, almost amusingly, the "best" speed lead, compounded by its application to all tags.
Dodge leaders: dodge leadership has fallen out of fashion due to the emphasis on speed in a lot of arena. Rex led teams have the advantage here of team wide TM gain over the course of the fight. While an OB lead may see some success, the 25% tm from a 15-30% dodge rate is most likely a lesser gain for the turn two race than the 45% tm the team gains (total, with Rex and four non clones) per crit (considering most toons run 40+% crit).
Ani lead: this leadership suffers from a fight between TM gain and raw power. I think the argument can be made that the second turn initiative and overall damage as a result tends to put Rex on top. This is further compounded in the current meta when a Wiggs opens on a non-Ani character only to have Ani aoe and grant the entire Rex team Full TM.
I love Rex. He's fantastic. I think his leadership is great. It's almost too good though, there is almost no reason to run any other leadership. He is the necropotence of SWGOH. The Mind Sculpter of SWGOH if you will. He is so good that I'm convinced he will be he meta, at 90, at 100. He is so good that outside of a pure gimmick leadership, he is the strongest value for a team.
So what? I'll suggest a "fix" that I, myself, hate. But for the overall growth of the game and health of arena variety, I propose a suggestion.
Rex lead could apply only to Clones and Jedi. I'd argue that the full benefit should be clones only, half benefit to Jedi.
Edit: some examples of how Rex stifles the meta. Consider how squads such as Geo Spy or Zam simply cannot function because their gimmick will bathe the Rex team in TM. Similarly, even assist teams or aoe teams simply provide bad TM value against Rex. Even Phasma, who has one of the strongest TM abilities (Victory March) grants a Rex team almost as much TM per character simple due to the guaranteed crits. Likewise, if EE (a TM monster) crits anyone, a Rex team gains almost as much as the EE team. He simply force of wills most team comps.
TLDR: Rex leadership is amazing. It is so good that there isn't a reason to run other leaderships.
I hate this, but for the future of the game I'd suggest Rex leadership only applying to Clones and Jedi.
Please don't hate me.
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I can think of one reason: $$$
He is only the lead on a few teams in the top 50 on my shard. And I have no trouble beating those teams with my Dooku team.
His leadership is roughly 10-20 speed. Per crit. For everyone. Twice that if you have a clone (but in the current meta you don't).
Make Zader Great Again!
It's just sad because I feel that his mere existence prevents the meta from expanding or growing.
Not running Rex would be like not running dual lands. Sure, there are work arounds, and some decks don't need them, but if you can, they only provide extreme value.
I have no idea what you people are talking about. He is not used that much in Arena, and has little affect on Meta. Check the report: https://swgoh.gg/meta-report/100/. Only 4% of the people that sync to SWGOH.GG use Rex lead. How is that doing anything to the meta?
Yeah rex lead skill is so good. I wonder why I never see rex without fac though.... what is the synergy and why a toon that gives crit down is the toon that is always with rex. Is it just cuz.... two best pay toons? I suppose on an aoe, u don't need all of the crits...
Rex lead makes me wish there was a crit chance down mod....
If not for rex, what else beats wiggs? Curious minds want to know.
Top 100 doesn't matter, what matters is top 10 because that's where the whales reside. That's where Rex makes the biggest difference.
https://swgoh.gg/meta-report/1/
https://swgoh.gg/meta-report/10/
Make Zader Great Again!
The lack of Rex in the "top 100" meta is mainly due to his rarity (he was an Au toon and a regular drop chromium, never a boosted drop chromium), and is not based off his effectiveness. Rex is the meta, if a player has Rex. If a shard had Rex present, it probably makes it takes the top 10, especially with Wiggs and Fac as back up.
He is gamebreakingly good, just rare. Don't take his rarity to mean he isn't the top leader.
Rex Fac is a simple soft counter to AoE teams, especially those who rely on St Han.
He's still 4th. Using the report, that puts EP as the "meta".
Making him one of the best characters in the game AND making him hands down the best leader of the game is just ridiculous. Has been for a while. If he was not limited to P2W then no one would be able to run any droids, anybody who throws a thermal detonator, stun teams, etc.
The only reason Rex owners seem to stop using him is from getting bored with winning so easily.
The argument about the value of Rex has to assume similar mods and gear levels (assuming roughly the same speed mods for everyone). If we don't assume everyone being on roughly the same page, no actual comparisons matter. A team of toons with perfect CHD mods with 30 speed secondaries can trash a team with 1 star mods.
Droids are free and they dont even show up on the pie chart.
spoken like someone who doesnt have rex, if you did you would realize he does not guarantee easy wins, he can be stunned with scoundrel han, ability blocked by 88 or old ben if they are behind sthan, like any character he has counters and instead of crying for him to get nerfed why dont you try and get characters that can counter him like everyone else who beats rex teams on a regular basis
The way I have always seen meta defined on this forum, is as flavor of the week. Poe/Speed meta. Dodge meta. Droid meta. Whatever. It changes all the time. As such, by definition, no P2W toon can drive the meta, because of lack of use.
My server has zero Rex leads in top 10, with only 1 in the top 50. Not sure how he can count as meta if he isn't everywhere. My server is still using largely JKA and dodge.
lol.
1) I didn't say he should get nerfed. I said he's ridiculously overpowered. The two statements are not the same. Aside from Poe I still haven't seen a character who I thought should be nerfed and they went way over the top with Poe.
2) If your comeback is that IG-88 counters him you have clearly never spoken to anyone who runs droids. Yes 88 can, if he gets lucky, block Rex by using his AoE. At the same time he is blocking Rex's individual abilities he is giving an entire team TM. This is why he's so powerful. You attack the 'character' Rex only to get crushed by the 'leader' Rex.
3) You can't stun him if he applies tenacity up unless you have better speed mods. Everyone in the game should understand at this point that better mods can allow anyone to beat anyone else but even there you're talking about how to neuter an individual character. Bringing stunners doesn't help you when Rex does get off his tenacity up (and removes any stuns from characters).
Stun/debuff/etc. teams are required to deal with Rex but with average or bad RNG become completely and utterly neutered by Rex the character.
The only effective tactic I've seen against Rex is to bring a huge number of big single-attacker characters who don't depend on debuffs. Leia, Rey, Anakin, Rex himself are all pretty good at killing Rex teams. But 95% of the toons out there rely on more than pure single-shot damage. And Rex counters that 95%.
Oh and he also is arguably the top-2 toons for the Rancor raid. So he's got that going for him. Which is nice.
QGJ is the only other character in the game with a similar mix of good leadership, good utility, and good damage and he's still inarguably the best P2W -> FTP convert EA/CG has made though Wedge may eventually challenge that top spot.
In fact I moved from my Rex lead to Wedge lead (Wedge, biggs, rex, anakin, Rex) because Rebel TM from crits is helpful, but mostly because the HP gain for rebels allows wedge and biggs to bounce between above and below 50% life (at least sometimes, especially when i am on offense). Thus allowing Anakin to go crazy!
so the counter to rex is speed mods, same as the counter to every other team in the game currently? if you dont have good speed mods most teams are hard to beat, that is not exclusive to rex lead. You think rex is ridiculously overpowered yet you dont want him to be nerfed? ok...saying that you think hes OP is a suggestion in itself that you think he should be nerfed
I run rex lead and I can tell you that ability block and scoundrel han does give him trouble, I deal with it every day, and at the same time I have no problem beating other rex lead teams so im not sure what everyone is complaining about, unless as per usual they dont have good enough characters or the right characters to counter rex and decide to come crying here to get him nerfed instead of working hard to actually beat him themselves which is very doable, if Rex is so OP why does my team still fall in ranks daily? because people on my server are able to beat him, and if they can then I dont see why other people cant, people around here need to start actually working for wins like everyone else who can beat rex lead instead of just complaining on the forums
I'm all for limiting leader abilities to their faction, but if you do it for one leader you have to do it for all. Otherwise that one or two leaders will dominate as we've seen in the past.
The current arena isn't only about speed, but raw power. You have Anakin with the health of a tank, and two of the strongest attacks in the entire game. To kill him quickly, critical attacks are pretty much necessary. You use a critical attack on him with Rex lead, and his entire team gains turn meter. Do an AoE with critical attacks, his entire team is pretty much guaranteed to take a turn.
With mods most at the top of the arena have their teams modded for critical chance. High critical chance against a Rex lead team is almost a death sentence. There are several Rex led teams at the top of my shard who stay there. The leader ability is by far the strongest, most overwhelming ability in the entire game at the moment. Anyone who says otherwise obviously hasn't come up against strong Rex teams that are full of health and crushing AoE attacks.
Nice catch! Re: force of will